Palliative care for surgical patients

Over the past decade, surgeons and surgical institutions have shown increased attention to palliative care for their patients. This has been part of the increased worldwide recognition of palliative care as a legitimate framework of medical care. Owing to the critical role of pharmacotherapeutics for both palliative care and the practice of surgery, the advent of this philosophy of care will inevitably result in new challenges and opportunities for all three of these entities. While anesthetic agents, antibiotics and immunosuppressants have extended the scope and length of surgery, drug-based therapies used to achieve palliative goals have the potential to extend the moral scope of surgical care.